


Without a Second Thought

by Feralious



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Developing Relationship, Guns, M/M, Post Skyfall AU, Slow Build, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 05:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1142213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feralious/pseuds/Feralious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bond was always quick to think on his feet. Putting a gun to Silva's head was only instinct, but he was not quite so sure about actually pulling the trigger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Without a Second Thought

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queen_insane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_insane/gifts).



> My 00Silva Exchange gift for [queen-hannibal-of-the-insane](http://queen-hannibal-of-the-insane.tumblr.com)! Sorry I couldn't get you a more decent thing but I hope you'll enjoy it nevertheless. :)

“I could kill you, you know.”

“Hm, but you won’t,” Silva said lazily, not looking up at Bond waving around the gun he’d left on the table for him to find.

Bond’s voice was a lot closer when he said, “How do you know?”

Silva still didn’t move, though it had surprisingly little to do with the cold, hard barrel that was suddenly pressed against his neck. He glanced up at Bond, curled his lips into a smirk. “I know, James.”

Bond smirked in return, but didn’t move the gun, just stared at Silva with curiosity in his eyes. “Maybe this was all a plan to get you to trust me, to get you to give me a weapon.”

Silva scoffed. “Dearest James,” he said as he brought up a hand, trailed fingers down the metal, not in any way attempting to take it from him. “You wouldn’t need a weapon to kill me. You’ve had plenty opportunities and you’ve never once been tempted.”

Bond raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t?”

“No,” he smiled. “I know you’ve wanted to kill me in the past, James, but those days are behind us. You’ve finally come to your senses. You finally understand.”

Bond moved the gun, placed the barrel against his temple this time, finger still loosely around the trigger. He stared Silva straight in the eyes, didn’t see a flicker of concern in them. Then something changed in his gaze. “Of course,” he laughed. “It’s unloaded.”

He removed the gun from his head, aimed at the wall and fired.

He blinked at the gaping hole that was staring back at him.

“Why would I give you a gun and no ammunition,” Silva frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense, James. You won’t be able to defend yourself using an empty gun.”

Bond looked at the gun, back at Silva again. “Apparently I don’t understand at all,” he said.

Silva sighed. “I thought you trusted me. Maybe I was wrong.”

“Maybe,” Bond nodded, inspecting the gun in his hands, removing the magazine and finding it fully loaded. He clicked it back into the gun and pointed it at Silva again, who was still sitting down, didn’t tense in any way when the weapon was pointed between his eyes.

“James, James,” he mused. “Do you really think I would be giving you a weapon if I thought you were going to shoot me? I know it’s been a while since your training, but I think you’d be more than capable of trying to kill me with your bare hands. I say ‘try’ because of course you wouldn’t succeed, but that’s beside the point.”

Bond snickered. “Really?”

Silva just looked stern. “Really.”

“Hm.” Bond didn’t really seem to be in the mood for arguing, but he also didn’t seem like he wanted to kill Silva anymore, if he ever did. He put away the gun, then turned around.

He stayed still for a few moments, then turned back towards Silva. “Why now?” he asked. Upon Silva’s questioning look – though he probably knew what he was talking about and was just being difficult for the sake of it – he elaborated. “Why do you feel like you can trust me now? I’ve been working with you for months, I left MI6 even longer ago. And for some reason you’ve decided that _now_ is the right time to trust me with a loaded gun around you?”

“Yes,” Silva simply said, though Bond could tell he was getting a little impatient by now. “ _Yes_ , James, I’ve decided that now was the right time to put all of my trust in you. And since you’re so curious to find out _why_ , let me _tell_ you why.”

“Finally,” Bond muttered as he leaned back against the wall, hands in his pockets.

“Do you remember what happened a few days ago? After you came back from your mission?”

Bond closed his eyes for a second, remembering the event he was talking about. “Ah. The guy that followed me here? Are you giving me a gun so I can put a bullet in his brain instead of strangling him the next time it happens?”

Silva pursed his lips in what seemed to be annoyance before shaking his head. “No,” he said. “No, James. I gave you that gun because instead of letting him take a shot at me you took him out. And that, to me, indicates you don’t want me dead.”

Bond was quiet for a moment, remembering that yes, he did indeed tackle the guy to the ground after he’d burst through the door and aimed a gun at Silva. He hadn’t even thought about it; his agent instincts had just kicked in and he’d floored the man, before putting his hands around his neck until he was no longer moving.

Come to think of it, Silva had been frozen in his seat at the time, but Bond had contributed it to him being caught in the shock of almost dying. Though now that he thought about it, perhaps he’d just been trying to come to terms with the fact that Bond saved his life before his very eyes.

“You said you never thought I wanted to kill you,” Bond mumbled.

“I did,” Silva agreed. “But I’m not sure I expected you to save my life. At least not without a second thought.”

Bond looked at him. He hadn’t expected it to happen either, but it did. He hadn’t even considered whether he’d be endangering his own life when he basically threw himself into the line of fire. Still, no one – outside from the thug who’d targeted Silva – had gotten hurt.

Silva had asked him whether the fiend was still alive, and James had checked his pulse to make sure. “Just unconscious,” he’d said.

“Good.”

After tying him up they waited for him to regain his consciousness again, and when he did they interrogated him. That is, Silva asked him the questions and relied on Bond to apply some MI6 techniques that were highly effective in getting people to talk.

In the end he didn’t give them any info, and Bond had watched as Silva crossed the room, picked up the discarded firearm, and without a moment’s hesitation shot the bad guy at point blank.

“He wasn’t going to give us anything, why waste our time,” Silva said coolly before walking around the body and sitting down in front of his computer again, already looking up possible leads as to which organization they’d offended enough for them to send someone after them.

Bond had stoically watched it all unfold and once again questioned his motives for working with him. Killing this man had happened in almost the exact same way he killed Sévérine. Quick, precise and remorseless. But he’d barely felt sadness over her death then, and he certainly didn’t feel anything of the sort now.

It hadn’t taken him very long to consider Silva’s offer. Once he’d gotten over the initial shock that he was still alive and made sure he hadn’t been the one who personally killed M – because the last thought he had of him wasn’t the one where he apparently _almost_ died in that church, but what happened right before that – the picture of him holding M, of begging her to put him out of his misery. Through it all he still loved M, and Bond could empathize with that. And of course Silva was smart enough to put off approaching him until Bond had hit rock-bottom again – MI6 had suspended him for what must’ve been the fifth time, again for using what Mallory called ‘excessive violence’ (and which Bond called ‘doing his job’). This time his suspension had been for an indefinite amount of time, and when his gun and credentials were taken away, Bond had resigned himself to the thought that they were kicking him out for sure this time.

Silva was offering him a chance to work in the field again, without questioning his methods, and as Bond soon came to find out, he actually had an eye for missions he knew Bond would accept.

For months Bond got his weapons from one of Silva’s lackeys while he was away and had to turn them in, accompanied by a pat down, before he was allowed to return to their headquarters. So even if Silva never thought he was planning on killing him, he wasn’t about to tempt him.

He was right, though. Bond had moved into the apartment after a month or so, getting tired of traveling back and forth. Besides, MI6 might’ve thought he was up to something if he kept visiting the same apartment. Bond was smart enough to know they probably still kept tabs on him. Either way – seeing as Silva slept in the apartment as well, Bond had had ample opportunity to end his life. He could’ve just snuck into his room and strangled him like he had their intruder. He knew for sure that at least from some point onward Silva slept with his door unlocked; because one night when he was wandering through the apartment he found it slightly ajar.

After he’d finished explaining to Bond why he’d given him the gun, Silva had gone to bed. Bond had wanted to go to sleep as well, but his mind kept going over the fact that it was _insane_ that Silva, someone he’d previously set out to kill, trusted him with his life.

Bond wandered the apartment that night, too. This time he found the door to Silva’s bedroom closed.

He paused for a moment, then, without even thinking it through, knocked twice.

“It’s open,” came Silva’s voice. Bond noted it didn’t sound sleepy at all, like he was waiting for him.

He’d entered the bedroom and closed the door behind him, sat himself down in a chair. Before long their conversation about trust had picked up again. And even though Bond wasn’t yet at the same point Silva was – he trusted him not to kill him, to fuck him over, but he didn’t trust him with his life – he quietly listened to stories about the time when Silva, Tiago then, still worked for MI6. And with every little detail that Silva told him, not just then but over the following weeks as well, he gained a little more sympathy for the man he’d once so resented.

One of those late night talks, accompanied by scotch and fresh scrapes and bruises from his latest mission, actually had Bond admitting that he trusted Silva, and Silva had surprisingly responded with running his fingers down his face, and Bond had scowled, wondered what had gotten into him.

Silva had told him how much it meant, to know that Bond had gotten to know him as a real person. That he no longer hated him for what he’d done. That although he’d trusted Bond with his life before, that over the past weeks he’d come to trust him with his secrets, too, which was perhaps even more important.

When he’d dropped his hand Bond had silently stared at him, had told him he’d never told anyone most of these things before, save for Vesper… and at that point Silva had leaned in, slowly, watching his reaction, and when James didn’t back away he’d closed the gap between them, softly, gently kissing him.

James still didn’t move away; accepted the kiss, returned it. Silva grew a little more certain in his actions then, deepening the kiss, placing a hand on Bond’s thigh, things gradually progressing without either of them even asking themselves the question what they were doing and whether it should stop.

Trust didn’t necessarily have to be spoken, and the trust they were showing each other now was only accompanied by soft gasps and sharp intakes of breath.

Perhaps the strongest evidence of trust they’d shown each other so far was being together at their most vulnerable without a second thought.


End file.
